Short-Rows: A New Method

Short-rows are a valuable tool to have in your knitting tool box. You can use them to add length to one section of a garment—I did that in our current knit-along, the Kayleen Pullover.

Since I carry weight in my midsection, my tops usually hang a little higher in the front than in the back. I added a little over two inches of short-rows to the front, which will make my top hang even all the way around.

To figure out how many short-rows to work to add the length I wanted, I used my row gauge. I'm getting 8 rows to the inch, and since I wanted to add two and a half inches to the front, I worked two sets of ten short-rows, about three inches apart.

I could have worked one set of twenty short-rows, but I didn't want the section to look like a pouch, so I decided to break them up.

The trick to really making short-rows work is to effectively hide the wraps. Our method of working short-rows (knit side, purl side), does a nice job hiding the wraps, but I learned a new method for hiding wraps on the knit side, one that works even better!

In episode #1302 of Knitting Daily TV with Vickie Howell, Vickie and Myra Wood demonstrate how to knit short-row wedges to make the Gentle Waves Bag, shown at left.

Myra works short-rows almost the same way as I do, but instead of slipping the stitch purlwise on the knit side, she slips it knitwise. When hiding the wrap, she brings the wrap over the left needle from front to back, placing it to the left of the slipped stitch on the right needle. Then she knits the stitch and the wrap together through the back loop. Here's how it works:

Wrap-and-turn process completed.

The wrap has been moved over the left needle, from front to back. This moves the wrap behind the slipped stitch.

Knitting the wrap and the stitch together, through the back loop. Knitting the two together through the back loop keeps the wrap behind the stitch. This position hides the wrap more effectively.

Beautiful! The hidden wraps don't show at all.

I'm going to use this method from now on. By the way, Myra uses the same technique that I do when she works short-rows on the purl side.

For more about short-rows, and tons more knitting techniques, tips and tricks, and interesting insights into the world of knitting, get series 1300 of Knitting Daily TV with Vickie Howell on DVD. And I'm featured in the Space-to-Space segment of the Short-Stuff episode!

Cheers,

P.S. Have you used short-rows in your projects? Leave a comment and tell us how they worked for you!